<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Saving Throw by baku_midnight</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24442630">Saving Throw</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/baku_midnight/pseuds/baku_midnight'>baku_midnight</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dead by Daylight (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Real World, Angels, Crimes &amp; Criminals, Discussion Of Murder, Heaven &amp; Hell, Kissing, M/M, Redemption, Romance, and discussions of violence, rated for language</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 07:28:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,241</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24442630</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/baku_midnight/pseuds/baku_midnight</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Evan has a chance to save his soul by saving the other would-be killers from themselves. With plucky, heaven-sent consultant Dwight at his side, he's sure to succeed, probably.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dwight Fairfield/Evan MacMillan | The Trapper</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>93</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Saving Throw</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Okay okay, I give in, I wrote Trapper like he isn't a piece of garbage in his one. I guess Evan deserves a chance to not be, y'know, tortured in perpetuity.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The ordeal of waking up consisted entirely of scorching in his lungs and throbbing in his head. Evan struggled to right himself, his heavy body collapsing under its own structure backwards three times before he could sit up straight and take in where he was. In front of his eyes were glowing, undulating black holes, slowly receding out of existence to be replaced by a searing headache. He remembered having…a heart attack? Could that be right? A sharp pain in the chest, a seizing of the limbs, thoughts turning into useless slurry as he keeled over… could he really have survived it?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan held his head in both hands, as though that would keep it connected to his shoulders. He remembered getting out of prison, walking out the doors and into his inheritance, having waited 15 long years for the chance to remake himself, and finding, with a miserable sort of surety, that all of his ambition had faded into nothing. He stared at the attic of the estate, the brick that peered out through chunky drywall, the smoky stone, the distant blue trees, saw his old life gathering dust, and thought, <em>this was not his</em>. Then, his heart started to act up like a restless child in church.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>What a stupid way to die. Freed after 15 years, only had enough time to get out and feel sorry for himself before biting the big one. It was poetic he’d die here, above the place where his family had fallen apart. Only fitting.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Oh, you’re up,” came a cautious, quiet voice, one that Evan quickly attributed to his waking dream, a product of his headache and the spots that swirled around in his eyes. He squeezed them shut.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Need another minute to settle?” the voice continued, and this time Evan looked up. There was a man in his attic: medium build, medium height, and incredibly unassuming. He might be any sort of remarkable with a shirt that fit, a fashionable haircut and glasses that were designed in the last decade—even after years inside, Evan knew fashion had progressed <em>a little </em>since he went in. The young man was dressed like the manager of an appliance store in a small town where everyone shared the same three last names, and ported a clipboard, which he folded to his chest.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan sneered at the intruder. “Who the hell are you?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The man recoiled. Evan supposed he made quite the sight: scarred up, thick and lean from prison food and routine in the yard, half-naked in a musty attic, surrounded by cobweb-coated relics. The young man composed himself with some difficulty, holding his clipboard like a shield over his heart, and tugging his tie straight. Despite clearing his throat, his voice came out with a crack when he addressed Evan again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m Dwight, and I’m an appraiser assigned to your case,” the man explained, “I was hired by heaven to lead you through a series of trials to see if you have a chance to be accepted up above. I don’t actually make the final judgement, mind you, that’s above my level—but I send my info along to those who do.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan shook his head, wincing when it made more stars burn in front of his eyes. Definitely a dream. Heaven wasn’t a thing, and certainly not for him. He’d seen plenty of signs of break-in around the estate when he’d come in—it was clear that local good-for-nothings explored the vacant property on occasion; surely this “Dwight” was little more than a prankster.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dwight leaned a little towards Evan, tilting his head curiously, as if he was expecting a response. “You get another shot at getting into Heaven, so, that’s good, right?” He whooped a little, trying for forced enthusiasm and achieving something more akin to confused irritation. After a minute of no response and Evan simply holding his head in his hands, he leaned even nearer.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan sat up with a snap, swinging a hand at Dwight, sweeping nothing but air as the man leapt out of his reach. He growled and settled back down, panting at his lap as even the effort of swatting a <em>bug</em> winded him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Jeez, sorry!” Dwight yelped, “I was trying to joke around; I’m not all that good at it.” He had backed into a stack of old relics wrapped in yellowed cloth, but to Evan’s slight confusion, didn’t appear to jostle or impact them at all.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan stood. He went to the window of the attic and looked out over the grounds. The storehouse, its north wall always piled with firewood, was naked of its usual skirt of logs, and falling into disrepair. The driveway was covered over with weeds such that the way out of the estate seemed invisible or even nonexistent. The forest that lined the property was in hues of blue and grey in the light of the moon, and lanterns lining the walk glowing meekly under an oppressive, dark fog. Little had changed of the shape of the place, yet inside the man to whom it belonged… much had.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He looked down at his hands. They were there, scarred and stained with coal and muck, and they when they didn’t flash out of existence, he knew he was entirely conscious again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So, I didn’t survive the heart thing?” Evan asked, and Dwight made a sympathetic face, pushing his lips together.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Guess not,” he said.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You don’t know? What kind of angel are you?” Evan asked, sardonic and bitter.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No, no, not an angel,” Dwight corrected instantly, “just an appraiser. I work<em> for</em> the angels.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan appraised the lad himself. He was plain, but seemed pure of intent: maybe too guileless to commit any sort of sin, rather than too innocent. His brown eyes flashed with a mix of sympathy and professional distance that confused Evan greatly. He was sceptical, to say the least. Perhaps he was still stuck in prison-mode, where one scrutinized every behaviour and every word said to him for hints that he was going to get stuck with a sharpened pen in the middle of the day and watch his guts bleed out onto the cement floor.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’re dead, too, then?” Evan asked, and Dwight nodded.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yep,” he said. “You’re <em>not</em>, though. The cardiac arrest <em>did</em> kill you, but you’ve been brought back for the trials. Do three and you’re home free!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan looked at his hands, and realized that yes, he was breathing, sweating and straining to pretend his back wasn’t killing him. He’d become an old man in the hole—maybe being in the same house his daddy beat him bloody in brought back memories of the old fuck, and encouraged his aching body to follow suit and age like a pot of milk on the counter.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What ‘trials’?” Evan asked. He wasn’t sure why he was even humouring this bright-eyed stranger with a pocket protector—he should just expel him from the property, maybe after dangling him over one of the rusty bear traps in the yard for a while before doing so.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Good deeds, basically. I’ve got the list and locations on my clipboard. It’s a way for you to show that you’re a good person, or at least good enough and repentant enough to head upstairs, you know?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan chewed his cheek so hard he thought he might wear a hole with his grinding teeth. “Good deeds”? “Good person”? Ridiculous. And here he’d always thought death brought eternal peace, not busy work.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m <em>not</em> a good person. You know what I did? It’s a goddamn doozy: I killed my—”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Nope!” Dwight interrupted, waving a hand in front of his face. “I don’t need to hear it. In fact, I’d rather not: I want my appraisal to be as unbiased as possible, and knowing what crimes you committed might colour my image of your soul.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan made a fist. He wasn’t used to being talked back to, and he was getting tired of this prank. He stomped closer to Dwight and reached for his collar, finding his hand sweep just through the air without even stopping. The incorporeal figure only shrugged and made that sympathetic face again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Sorry, but I don’t have a solid body down here. Not until I get promoted,” Dwight explained, tilting his head in a distinctly patronizing manner, like he was talking to a disgruntled customer and was on his way to saying “there’s nothing else I can do.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan growled. “Fine.” He stuffed his itchy hand into the pocket of his overalls. “What-the-fuck-ever. You’re saying I can get into heaven? Why would I want to go there?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Well, it sure as hell beats the alternative—pun intended,” Dwight chuckled at his own joke, blushing when Evan continued to glare. He cowered a little, putting his back to the window. Moonlight bounced off of his messy ebon hair and unfashionable specs. “And heaven is great. It’s exactly where you want to be and what you want to see. It’s tailor-made for every person! You’ll love it.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan took a deep breath. His lungs still burned, but the pain was almost welcome—a sign that he was alive and still could breathe. The same could not be said for the poor souls buried beneath the property… he brushed the memory aside. Maybe this would be a good way to occupy himself, at least for a while. He knew full well that his old life, as heir and CEO-in-training for the massive conglomerate, was no longer his. Maybe it was time to find a new role.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Alright, fine. Let’s do it,” he said, and started to march towards the door to the attic. Dwight stopped him by clearing his throat.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Do you wanna change first?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan looked down at himself. He was dressed in his work overalls, and they were splattered equally with rust from the machinery and blood from the game he’d slaughtered and put in the chest freezer this afternoon. His feet were bare and his hands stained with blood, and beneath his overalls—nothing. He went to change.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The first of Evan’s three trials took him to a mental health facility in the city. He wore a shirt and slacks, finding the shirt barely fit now over his bulging, post-prison physique. Dwight did a bit of beguiling to make it fit better, saying that if he got promoted, he could<em> actually </em>make it fit better, but illusory magic was the best he could do, for now.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan wondered if his scar—a remnant of that last struggle with his, er, past—would worry any of the people in the facility. He thought about asking Dwight to beguile it as well, found that he was unlikely to be noticed by the denizens of Crotus Prenn: most of them seemed to be in their own little worlds. They were not neglected, but seemed despondent anyway: being alone in your own mind was the worst kind of isolation, Evan knew, though he tried not to sympathize. That was a lesson his father taught him and that was actually useful, in an awful sort of way.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“The woman’s name is Sally Smithson,” Dwight explained, walking at Evan’s side. They were awfully mismatched: one looking like a hired thug in a film about cars that drove furiously and the other like an intern for an accountant who handled particularly boring cases. Evan wasn’t ashamed of his physique, though blending in was a luxury he could no longer enjoy. “Heaven knows she’s at her limits. She’s about to do something awful.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“And what am I supposed to do about it?” Evan asked through the side of his mouth.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Help her,” Dwight explained, “save her from herself. I’m sorry, but that’s all the hints I can give you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They walked the halls until they found Smithson, dressed in scrubs, and disheveled and exhausted. Her eyes had dark circles and her cropped hair was greasy, and she looked about ready to collapse. She was leaned over a small cot, replacing the sheets while her patient, a curmudgeonly man in a wheelchair berated her endlessly.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Hurry up, damn you,” the man said, while Smithson tried to ignore him. “Damn lazy bitch. I should show you my hand.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Smithson let out a sigh. It was clear that veins were struggling not to pop out of the skin at her temple. It was clear that the man was ill with some malady of the mind that altered reality, that interfered with his ability to understand the stimuli that were around him—he might’ve thought he was being persecuted by government-funded mind-controlling radio waves, or that he was the king of Denmark, for all anyone outside of his head knew. But while it might’ve explained his behaviour, it didn’t excuse the way the nurse was being treated.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Where’s my diazepam?” the man asked, suddenly, patting his chest down and looking concernedly around.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’ve already had it,” Smithson replied, looking up from tucking a corner of sheet to a heavy plastic cup flying at her face. It was hurled with some force and malice, and she winced and held her hand over her eye.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Bullshit. You lying cunt. I know you’re part of this, too. Always trying to screw with me,” the patient said, “put me in here with all these crazy people—it’s like you want me dead. Is that it?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He was nigh-incoherent but Smithson replied collectedly, even while Evan, watching from the doorway, wanted to the throttle the bastard. Ill or not, he deserved some sense knocked into him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m just trying to help you, Brian,” Smithson assured, repeating it over and over while she was called every bad name in the book. Eventually, she took her leave, putting her back against the closed door and taking a deep breath that concealed a sob. Through the wall her patient continued to berate and abuse. She was so overwhelmed that she didn’t even see Evan and Dwight stood just before her.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Oh,” she said when she noticed the two well-dressed men in the hall, “excuse me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>She moved onto her next duty, floating like a ghost, limp and neutered of resolve. She was listless as a doll, and once again, Evan tried not to sympathize, even though in her empty gaze he saw his own prior helplessness. Losing everything, having nothing, no purpose, no ambition...there was little worse.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Well,” Evan said, nudging Dwight with his elbow, frustrated when his arm went through air, “what am I supposed to do? She could just quit.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dwight scoffed. “You’ve never had a crappy job you took just because you needed the money?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan frowned. No, he hadn’t. He’d only had one job, and it was force-fed to him with a tarnished silver spoon: to embody his father’s ambition was his only option in life.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They followed the nurse around for a few more hours, wandering through Crotus Prenn Community Health Facility like they belonged there. No staff hassled them; all of the nurses, doctors and security seemed too overworked to even notice their existence. The facility was overfull and understaffed, and cold, sterile and lonely. Smithson travelled the halls like a drone, hovering mindlessly over the scuffed linoleum.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Day grew into night and the patients were put into their beds. Evan and Dwight listened to the moans and complaints and cries, accusations by bewildered patients, half-hearted explanations from the staff. One old woman asked “when is my daughter coming to pick me up?” more than fourty times in a row, forgetting the answer immediately each time. A young man simply screamed and thrashed wordlessly when they tried to take him to his room, it taking the strength of two burly nurses just to move him down the hall. Wails of fear and anger echoed in the halls, and Smithson went to flick off the lights to cast the block in darkness.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Instead of heading to the break room with her fellow nurses, however, then, Smithson went back towards one of the private rooms, once the wailing from inside had quieted. Her steps were silent, her countenance almost mechanical, like she wasn’t even thinking as she went back into Brian’s room.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan followed, his pulse beginning to pound. He’d seen the nurse’s blank, mindless anger on a face before: his own. He burst into the room to see Smithson hovering over her sleeping patient, a pillow clutched in her thin hands, white knuckles straining around the fibres. She was lowering it towards his face when Evan called out to her, just quiet enough to catch her attention but not enough to awaken her would-be target.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Sally.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The woman’s shoulders jolted and she turned rapidly to face him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Don’t do this. Don’t let him take away your life,” Evan said. The words came easily; they were the same that he’d wanted to tell himself ever since that day. He saw himself hovering at his own shoulder, like a spirit—or an angel, he supposed—asking himself to reconsider.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What am I supposed to do?” she said, and her voice was creaky and weak like a woman far beyond her age. “I have nowhere else to go!” she hissed, squeezing the pillow to her own chest like a shield. Her belligerent patient snored loudly behind her, his troubled mind quieted in sleep.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You do,” Evan assured, “you don’t have to live like this. Take action. Tell people how you’re struggling. Talk to those in charge. And if they won’t listen… leave. You’ll be alright.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Tears pricked the eyes of the exhausted young woman. She looked down and took a deep, deep breath, like she hadn’t done so in years, and raised her eyes to Evan’s.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Alright,” she said, starting to walk away. “Thanks.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan watched the diminutive woman trail past him, her steps quiet but far less ghostly. Her head was held high with intent. She went to the break room, and from inside Evan heard soft words…and then sobs, consolation, and commiseration. Collaboration. That’s what people in these sorts of situations needed: teamwork. Being the only one on your own side was agony.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As he stepped out into the hall, he noticed Dwight watching him attentively, and just then remembered he was there. The holy accountant wrote notes on his clipboard, humming to himself as he wrote, making faces of thought and concentration.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So?” Evan asked, and the young man shot him a “be right with you”-type smile.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Very good,” Dwight nodded, holding his clipboard against his breast. “I think you helped her a lot. And you said you’re not a good person!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan raised an eyebrow. He was never the type to put on airs—it was another lesson taught by his father. Don’t play at being what you’re not: just be perfect, infallible, the ideal son—genuinely. Remake yourself in the shape of what you want to be; do not be satisfied with what you are. It was good advice, if the context wasn’t so miserable.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I just don’t like injustice,” Evan turned to Dwight. “What happens now? What if she still goes through with it? Should I report her to her superiors, or…?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Do you think that would help? Getting chewed out by her boss?” Dwight asked, tilting his head. “It doesn’t matter what comes next; you’ve helped put her onto the right path. That’s enough.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They went back to the estate together, Evan feeling distinctly less monstrous and out-of-place on the rapid transit, where he blended in with all of the other unusual folk that made the city home. He used to be above these people, or maybe he only incorrectly thought as much. He tipped the taxi generously and then climbed out, long legs finding the gravel drive of the mansion again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Well, this is where I’ll leave you,” Dwight said, “until tomorrow, at least.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan frowned. “I thought we’d knock them all out in one night.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You’ve still got two more days,” Dwight explained, tilting his head. “I mean, I could probably stretch it to a week if I <em>really</em> debased myself, but. Heaven and their deadlines, you know?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dwight smiled, his expression still inscrutable, like he was sympathetic but also mentally elsewhere. Evan wondered what he was thinking. He was so…simple, there was nothing remarkable or objectionable about him, and that in itself was unusual to Evan, who’d been raised among massive personalities and who spent the last decade and a half around liars, cheaters, and hidden agendas. Dwight gave the impression of someone who was on the surface what he was beneath it. Evan wanted to find out. He reached out, to pat Dwight on the back, cuff his shoulder, something, before remembering too late that his form was unreal, and his hand went right through it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Sorry,” Dwight said, “just wait until I get that promotion, then you’ll be able to—”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“To what?” Evan asked, tipping his chin.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Oh,” Dwight stumbled, going a bright shade of red that was brilliantly visible, even in the midnight fog that covered the estate’s grounds, “I mean, it would be nice to be able to touch again. I mean, not <em>you</em>, just, in general. Um.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan felt himself smiling for the first time in ages; just a small twitch of his upper lip, the scar tissue straining awkwardly under the unfamiliar movement.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“A-anyway,” Dwight stammered, “I’ll see you for the next trial. Goodnight!” With that, the young man simply disappeared, dissolved like smoke rising from a campfire. In the space he left was nothing but cold, nighttime air. Evan went into the estate, unlocking the front door with his heavy, swinging keychain and going inside. He stoked a fire in the den before falling asleep just in front of it, surprisingly exhausted, but somehow rejuvenated.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan finished breakfast—made of fresh game from the border woods, crackers, and tubers from the overgrown gardens—as Dwight arrived. Evan sipped black coffee and enjoyed the bitter flavour, the heat on his tongue, for a moment thinking about the fact that he was brought back only temporarily to the world of the living, or at least that was what Dwight implied. Perhaps these earthly joys would soon be lost to him entirely—food, drink, sleep, and touch. He would die permanently when the trials were done.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dwight was dressed in a new shirt and slacks, just as baggy and unflattering as the last, and stood in the doorway of the massive, empty dining hall. Evan hadn’t even bothered to remove any of the cloths the housekeepers had placed there a decade ago, only dragging up a corner of linen enough to use the end of the table. The young man seemed to give off a bit of a glow, which Evan associated with clichéd depictions of heaven—or maybe it was only his comparatively cheery demeanor contrasted with the gloomy nature of the mansion.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Ready for your next trial?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He leaned close and showed Evan a few surveillance-type photos gathered on his clipboard. In the pictures were four masked hoodlums, thin and flexible with youth, dashing around in the middle of an inner-city night. They wore hoods and crudely made masks, and looked as though they were trying very hard to be frightening.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Intel says these four—” he read the names from a print-out on his clipboard, “Frank, Joey, Susie, and Julie—are planning to rob a convenience store and beat up the clerk working the nightshift. They’ve been posting their plans all over social media, but everyone’s ignoring them—thinking they’re just some edgy teens. I mean, they <em>are </em>that, but, it sucks to be ignored, y’know?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What am I supposed to do about it?” Evan raised an eyebrow. “Call the cops?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Honestly, that would probably just embolden them,” Dwight said, “they want attention and they think they’re gonna get it by doing bad things. If they get arrested, they’ll just have a reputation.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dwight tapped his lip with his forefinger. “I’m really not supposed to give you hints, but…” he leaned closer, as if worried someone would hear them. They were alone in a decrepit mansion with enough rooms to house a hundred, but, Evan supposed, the ears and eyes of heaven were all-reaching, or else what good would they be?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I think you should scare them straight,” Dwight confided. Evan pondered a moment, and then nodded, and hurried off to the attic.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There he found it, in a box of its own, wrapped in tissue: the mask he’d made as an art project. The piece was meant to represent the inner anger that plagues even the mildest man, constructed out of wood with embedded animal teeth, it bore a frightening, too-wide grin with too-small eyeholes for maximum depersonalization and terror. He’d taken cues from the art of the native people of the coast, whose art reflected the nature of man and the world surrounding him, and made use of animal parts, which imbued the work with their spirits. It was a relic of the time that Evan, foolishly, had actually thought he might become a professional artist, before that aspiration was beaten out of him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Ready?” Dwight asked, and looking down at the gruesome mask in Evan’s hand, answered for himself, “Looks like it. We need to go up north for this one, so, we hafta use a bit of heavenly intervention. Stand close to me and I’ll take us there.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As Evan stepped into Dwight’s space, he felt the floor give way beneath him, and in the next second, found the mansion fallen away to be replaced by a cold city street. The air was icy and dry here, and he knew they’d travelled miles in moments. “City of Edmonton” greeted flags fluttering on streetlamps, and the place was mostly empty, citizens stowed away indoors, bracing against the early autumn chill.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They found and trailed the four delinquents for a few hours, finding them utterly alone. Parents seemed to be absent, leaving the four to themselves. They listened to music on a street corner, lifting their middle fingers at those who asked them to turn the speakers down. They pulled their hoods up high and their sleeves down low. They talked loudly, boisterously, swearing for everyone to hear, making themselves as big as possible. They had something to prove, and this seemed the only way they had to do it.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As the sun went down, the four disappeared, going down an alley and into an abandoned house, the matchbook-sized yard just large enough for a “no trespassing” sign and a few pieces of litter. Dwight guided Evan to the convenience store that was to be their target. The Macs had a halo of artificial light, with wide windows overlooking a tiny parking lot.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ll put myself in the place of the real clerk, just in case something goes wrong,” Dwight explained, and suddenly, he was dressed in the uniform of a store clerk, with a blue vest over short-sleeved shirt, and a nametag that drearily exclaimed “MANAGER”. “When they come to rob me, <em>you</em> come in and do your thing.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan nodded. This time, he’d worn his bloodstained overalls and nothing beneath, with a massive leather coat on top that made his shoulders even wider, so he hulked like a bear stranded in the city. He watched Dwight go inside the store and make a show of checking inventory, greeting customers, and finally placing himself behind the till.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The four delinquents arrived shortly after midnight. They hovered around the store until it was empty of all but them, and then, with masks disguising their faces, approached the counter.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Can I help you?” Dwight asked, and one of the kids, acting as leader, revealed a knife from his side and held it at hip-level.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Give me the money from the register,” the boy said, making his voice sound lower and gruffer than it in reality was. He nearly climbed onto the counter, sliding the knife across the plate glass until it poked towards Dwight’s stomach, while one of the other hoodlums went around to the gate that separated the back from the front of the store and blocked it, and another kept an eye on the security camera in the corner above the register.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Come on, guys,” Dwight said, raising a hand to his heart, “I’m just trying to do my job, here. My boss’ll kill me if I come up short.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I don’t give a fuck!” the masked boy shouted, “give me the fucking money or I’ll drive this right through your guts!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Even though he could not be physically harmed, Dwight made a play at being scared for his safety, raising both hands shakily in front of him. Just outside the door, Evan watched for a moment, and then looked down at the mask in his hands. It was musty with age and even further mangled by poor handling—no doubt the housekeepers didn’t exactly cherish it over the years—lending it another level of authenticity. He’d intended it to look like it was made of bone, and looking at it now, in the dark, he thought he’d succeeded.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Alright, okay,” Dwight said, reaching towards the register, tapping buttons here and there while only taking his eyes off of the intruders for a split second to glance at the door. “You guys should know, though, I just pressed the silent alarm, and the security guard will be here in a second. He’s really big, and scary, and—”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Shut the fuck up!” the boy cried, kicking the counter with a booted foot, making it rattle. His gloved hand gripped the knife, thrusting it nearer to Dwight’s stomach. “Fuck your security guard! I’ll stab the shit out of him, too!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dwight nodded, and went back to the register, poking a button or two before looking up at the door, which slid open with the telltale <em>ting</em> sound made by the motion detector. Three of the four would-be robbers turned to look and see, standing in the doorway, a hulking, seven-foot villain, in a mask and covered in rust and old blood, like something out of a horror film.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan supposed he did make quite an imposing figure, especially compared to four skinny teens, who gave themselves piercings and smoked cigarettes in eighth grade and thought it made them the toughest shit in history. He pushed his shoulders forward and stalked towards the group, breathing harshly through his mask, the mangled, grotesque face bearing down on them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>One of the teens, a boy by the look of his figure, actually bravely lunged at Evan, trying to push him aside, but Evan grabbed him by the shoulder and tossed him on his butt. One of the others—a girl, by the same measure—hid immediately behind the leader, cowering at his shoulder. The leader finally turned around, to find Evan staring wordlessly at him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What the fuck?!” the boy exclaimed, and before he could even think about thrusting his knife, Evan caught his wrist and pulled him off of the counter, twisting and squeezing until the boy whimpered and dropped his blade. He was too stunned to even swear, merely moaning like a scared child as Evan threw him down by the wrist, landing him on the cold linoleum next to his cohort. The girls followed, helping to lift the boys to their feet. Evan blocked their escape by planting one heavy, booted leg before them.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Get…out…” Evan ground out through grit teeth, making his best show of anger, contempt, and unhinged violence. He growled and puffed like an animal, making fists at his sides but declining to raise them, allowing the teens’ imaginations to fill in the blanks left by his eyeless stare. “<em>Get…out!!”</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>He shouted and the teens scrambled to their feet in an instant, one of them knocking over a display of candy and lighters, another skidding on the slippery floor. As one dashed past Evan to get to the door, he tore off his milk-carton mask and let it fall to the floor with a dull <em>clack</em>, before running away as fast as his legs could carry him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What the fuck was that thing?!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What the fuck, Frank?! Why didn’t you do anything?!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Me?! You said you’d watched this place, Joey! How did you miss the ten-foot-tall Chainsaw Massacre?!”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As their terrified shouts faded into the distance, Evan let out a pleased hum. It was almost too easy. He’d barely even needed to touch them. Beside him, Dwight was leaning on the counter like he owned the place, blending in almost too well, looking like he’d been manager for weeks. Evan supposed that was his strength—he fit in as much as Evan stood out.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Great work,” Dwight beamed, “scared the heck out of <em>me</em>, at least.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He was flushed with either effort or adrenaline or something else, and breathing just a little bit harder. Maybe he’d gotten a little too into the act and forgotten he couldn’t be harmed by knife or otherwise, but he stroked back his messy black hair and readjusted his glasses as he came around the front of the register. He pointed a finger at the security camera above the counter and enchanted it to do something—replace the footage of the last few minutes with something less conspicuous, Evan suspected—before leaning against the counter with one hand. Beneath the glass were scratch tickets.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Where’d you get the mask, anyway?” Dwight asked, and Evan realized then that he was still wearing it. He plucked it off, feeling the cords that secured it slipping off of the back of his bald head. He ran his thumbs across the mangy surface, the wolf’s teeth that protruded out of the mangled jaw, the scrapes and stains that adorned the brow.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It was an art piece for a show I planned on doing,” Evan explained.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dwight looked sympathetic again, his lips dropping open and his eyebrows crinkling with concern. “You’re an artist?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’d wanted to be,” Evan said softly. He remembered big paper pads smudged with graphite, paint under his nails for days, a rush of excitement when the image came together just right, talking to the characters in the portraits as he brought them to life, the giddy joy of finishing a piece…but he also remembered his father’s harsh derision, the open hand across his face, and later, when his father was too small, the hideous words he used instead to abuse his overgrown son. <em>You’re a useless, dickless sodomite. You’ll never amount to shit.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’d wanted to be a physical therapist, can you believe that?” Dwight revealed, rubbing the back of his neck. “That was my dream. But, y’know, things happen.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“My father didn’t approve,” Evan confided before he even realized what he was doing. But why not confide? What did he have to lose? He was living on borrowed time as it was, and didn’t have much longer left to share his earthly life. “I was under his finger for so long, I…” He let out a deep sigh. “Don’t have to deal with him anymore, though.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Wordlessly, Dwight transported them back to the estate, scribbling notes while Evan changed into night clothes: a thin t-shirt and sweats, and built a fire in the den. Dwight sat at the dining table and wrote for what seemed to be a long time, occasionally lifting from the paper to touch the pen to his lip and look up to retrieve a memory. Evan watched curiously. He was a charming sight, really. And Evan’s fingers ached for touch. He went to stand at Dwight’s shoulder.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In an instant, the text disappeared from the page on which he wrote and Dwight smiled up at him. “I can’t show you your results, but I can tell you that you’re doing well, so far!” He stood and folded the clipboard against his chest. “You’ll be heaven-bound in no time.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan reached out a hand to Dwight’s cheek. His knuckle slid right through the heavenly cheek as though he was nought but air. Dwight’s eyes widened.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ll end up like you? Doing heaven’s paperwork?” Evan asked, cupping a hand around Dwight’s cheek, although his calloused palm touched nothing.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Not exactly,” Dwight replied softly, and vaguely. “We’re not in the same boat. This is my penance; the trials are yours.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan raised an eyebrow at him, and Dwight just shook his head. He stepped easily out of Evan’s reach.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m…really not a good person,” Dwight explained. “I… lied. And I took advantage of people’s weaknesses. I exploited them. For a long time it felt like I was always the one being used, stepped on to help other people succeed. So I started using <em>them</em>. Stepping on them. So that I could survive.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan watched him. Dwight’s pale cheek darkened, his eyes lowered. Surely anything he’d done hadn’t nearly matched the evil of Evan’s actions. He began to say as much when Dwight raised his head again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’ll see you tomorrow for the next test,” he said briskly, and even with his gaze averted, the flush of pink was unmistakeable on his cheek. Between one blink and the next, he was gone.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan went to bed and stared up at the blank ceiling, its white tinted navy in the midnight light. What forces had conspired to bring Dwight to him? They were of utterly different worlds, yet it seemed as though they were meant to spend these trials together, their fates entwined.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The next day’s trial brought them to a dark, seedy scrapyard in the Midwest. A mountain of crushed cars stood on a hill, and old defunct models made the walls of a decrepit maze. The grass grew thick here and there beneath the vehicles while it suffered in the muddy walkways.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“The target is one Philip Ojomo,” Dwight said, looking at his notes, flipping the pages back and forth as if bewildered by their contents. “He’s been in the country for a few months, got a job working here… That’s really all I can tell you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Can’t give me too many hints, right?” Evan asked, and Dwight shook his head.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“No, truly,” he frowned at the clipboard, “that’s pretty much all it says.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They looked around the scrapyard for clues. Ojomo was a slim, youthful sort, and when he talked, he was soft-spoken and maintained a thick accent. He did his work independently, moving from car to car in search of parts, loosening rusted bolts and digging out their guts, and then, when prompted, feeding the dilapidated vehicles into the crusher with a crane. He seemed of mild, normal temperament: Evan couldn’t tell immediately what the problem was.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan went to the office, which fronted a supplies shop with rickety shelves and an ancient looking gas pump. Inside was the boss of the operation, a burly and stout type from whom Evan gleaned a distinctly unpleasant air. Maybe it was the decade in prison, or his father’s unkindly influence, but he’d developed a keen eye for criminals. And this one was up to no good.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Can I help you?” the boss, a severe fellow, called Solomon by the name on his jumpsuit, asked.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan looked over his shoulder to find Dwight absent, likely disappeared into the woodwork, looking in secret for clues.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Yeah,” Evan intoned, “I uh, could use some work done.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The man’s gaze narrowed. “We’re full-up for the day.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan saw no one else, customer or otherwise, in the tiny establishment. “I was hoping to get a quote.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“We don’t do ’em,” the unpleasant man muttered, “you can look for what you need in the scrapyard, or come back some other time.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan nodded slowly. Rude was one thing, but this man and this place reeked of suspiciousness. As the man leaned, looking disinterestedly at his phone, on the counter, Evan peeked over the man’s shoulder. Dwight appeared there in silence, and searched through a drawer poking out from a shelf behind the counter. His expression went from intrigued to grave, and then to worried as he looked up at Evan. He closed the drawer in a hurry and then disappeared again, just as Solomon turned away from his client.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They assembled again in the scrapyard, between two hills of ruined cars, ducking into the shade, plenty far from the office or any onlookers. Dwight held his clipboard awkwardly out from his chest, checking through the papers, where he’d copied the information from the desk.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Definitely something going on here,” Evan uttered, crossing his arms. The man in the office hadn’t been in the slightest intimidated, or even concerned by Evan’s presence, if anything seeing him as a nuisance. And the office had had a peculiar smell—aside from rust and oil, something fetid and dark.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Look,” Dwight reached out trembling hands. There was a log of entries for jobs, it seemed, though each was labeled cryptically with the date and description: “runner”, “two-wheeler”, “net loss”—none of them seemed like anything to do with fixing or modifying cars. Another page had a list with headshots of local cops: labeled with comments like “does business”, “ask for money upfront”, or “steer clear”.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It was blatant, and honestly pretty stupid to keep information like that in writing, even as clumsily encrypted as it was. It was clear they were committing crimes and collaborating with law enforcement to do it: maybe bribing the cops or hiding the details from them. But what could they be up to in a place like this?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan kept an eye on Solomon for a few hours, tailing him through the scrapyard and to a shed into which the man disappeared. When he re-emerged it was with a man with bound hands, and cloth bag over his head, and, by the muffled mewling sounds of terror that issued from under the cloth, a gag in his mouth.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan ducked behind a stack of cars as Solomon passed with his hostage, still wondering what was going to happen. A shakedown? A kidnapping? What was he witnessing? He dragged the struggling captive to the trunk of a broken-down car and stuffed him within, silencing his moans by sealing the latch.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What the hell?” Evan hissed, and looked down to see Dwight close at his arm, cowering behind the vehicle. He looked frightened, wide-eyed, and Evan felt compelled to slide an arm around his shoulders, even knowing it would do nothing. He turned back to the scene and from what seemed to be a great distance, saw Solomon approach Ojomo.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The lad was wiping his hands on his coveralls when his boss approached. He tilted his head in a distinct way as Solomon explained something. Then, the stout man patted Ojomo on the back and sent him on his way. Ojomo got in the crane and lifted the car—the one containing the prisoner—to the stack above the crusher.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan shot to his feet. Dwight’s hands shot out just as immediately to grab his arm, finding no purchase. “Wait, wait!” he cried, but Evan was already striding over. His heartbeat throbbed as he watched Ojomo, thankfully, blessedly, turn off the machinery, after putting the car aside, and leave to go on a break. He wanted to rush over to the lad and shake him straight. Surely Ojomo didn’t know what he was party to—and if he did, he deserved more to be throttled than saved. And that villainous boss of his…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan felt the anger that he’d abandoned long ago rise up in him again. It hurt. It burned like a disease in his lungs. He stomped back and forth, rushing in one direction before stopping, turning and heading back the other way, stopping and turning again, pacing while breathing like an angered bull. He thought about confronting Solomon, about freeing the prisoner, about going after Ojomo—he didn’t know where to start, and it felt like it was killing him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Evan, Evan, wait,” Dwight was saying at his side, matching his pacing, their mismatched strides making Dwight’s gait awkward and hurried. “You can’t just rush in there. It’s dangerous. Don’t.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So I just stand here and watch?! Is that what I do?!” he shouted back at Dwight, who winced at the sound of his voice cutting across the fog of the car cemetery. He lowered his volume. Part of him wanted to fight the criminal head-on, but he’d spent enough time in prison to know that the sort like him didn’t operate without back-up. What if Solomon had weapons? What if he had more captives? Evan’s head swam. The mask appeared before him, staring him down with its empty, black eyeholes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Evan, please,” Dwight shook his head, “just wait, figure things out. Don’t do something you’ll regret.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I should kill him. I should—” Evan panted. His fists were so tight the nails dove into the flesh of his palms. His stomach was twisted, his chest tight. Anger. There was so much<em> anger</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Think about Ojomo,” Dwight said softly, reaching for Evan’s arm again. He rested a palm on the flesh of Evan’s bicep, although there was no touch, no warmth from his flesh, no softness from his skin. “Think about <em>you</em>. You’re not that person, Evan. You’re not.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>What did he know?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan shook him off, pacing away behind a stack of ruined cars. Memories floated to the surface like fetid flotsam. A dark controller’s office with the smell of soil, rock, rust, rotten coffee; his father hunched over a panel, his look distant yet tunneled. Evan’s hands in front of his face. Doomed souls below their feet.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“You wanna know what kind of person I am?” Evan stepped towards Dwight, the young man recoiling before his towering form. Evan drew himself to full height, pulled his shoulders back, the fists at his sides searing with white-hot pain. “You wanna know what I did?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Evan,” Dwight whispered, shaking his head. He clutched a hand near to his heart. “I don’t need to know.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I killed my own father,” Evan hissed, and with the admission it was like a damn breaking, water steaming and spluttering through the cracks before bursting forth like an aneurysm. “I killed him with these two hands. Choked him to death.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dwight shook his head. Tears were welling in his eyes, his lower lip jutting, his hands trembling. Evan no longer wanted to comfort him. He wanted to scare him. He wanted the young man to flee. Leave Evan in his deserved isolation. Let him die and go wherever it was he belonged.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“He was planning to destroy the mine,” Evan explained, expression slackening as he remembered the miners. The anger against his father gave way to miserable memory. “He’d rigged it with dynamite. There were 120 men down there. He’d…gone mad. Said he’d ‘start anew’. I didn’t know what he… I couldn’t let him. I just grabbed him and started to… and I couldn’t stop.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan sank to his knees. He sat against a deflated tire of a defunct auto. He wasn’t in the scrapyard anymore. He was in the overseer’s office, his father crumpled at his feet, the button for the fuse long-since depressed.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I couldn’t even save them,” Evan whispered. He hadn’t even disabled the charge. He’d succeeded only in ending his father’s life, and along with him went the souls of 120 innocent men. Murder in the third degree, that’s what Evan had been charged with, and his father, no punishment, only release. The men were buried in minutes. Some of them might’ve even survived long enough to realize what was happening, that there was going to be a cave-in, and that there was nothing they could do to stop it. Evan felt their souls come up to tug him down.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dwight sat at his side and leaned on his chest. His cheek fell against Evan’s shoulder, though his touch was as cold as the fog.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan looked down at the young man. His messy black hair went in all directions, and his nose was red with tears. He looked up at Evan in silence. How could he even bear to look at Evan now, much less touch him? Evan stared back.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So now you know,” Evan said, calmly. Anger was flowing out of him just as quickly as it had flooded in, trickling like a boiling stream. It was replaced with a feeling of sickness. “These trials are pointless.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dwight shook his head. He tucked his nose against Evan’s chest. “Help Ojomo,” he said softly, swallowing down tears. “You need to.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan sighed. It felt distinctly pointless, but strangely, he was compelled to do as Dwight asked of him. He felt energized by the young man’s look, and figured it had something to do with heavenly magic. Had to be. He got to his feet.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Night was coming over the scrapyard, thickening the greenish fog that roiled about the sullen grounds. The fellow Ojomo was returning to his shift, walking towards the crane. Before he could make it, however, there came a thud that caught his attention, and he drew towards the trunk of the car he’d placed earlier. It sat neutered on the dusty ground, rattling impotently, emitting soft cries. Ojomo popped the trunk with a slender thumb, and looked down to see the prisoner cowering there.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The lad’s gentle face grew dark. He reached into the trunk and drew the man out, helping him place his feet on the ground and then taking off his restraints. The man begged and blubbered when the gag was removed. Ojomo cut the bonds around his hands with a pocket knife, listening in silence. When the man rushed away on shaky legs, sobbing and stumbling on his feet like an injured bird, Ojomo watched after him, tilting his head. In his hand he kept the knife, pressing his thumb into the hilt. Evan watched as the glazed, dark, empty look came over his gentle face, and he turned to go to the office building.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan leapt forward, finding Ojomo in three long, ground-eating strides. He slammed a hand over the lad’s shoulder, dragging him back. Ojomo turned the knife immediately on him, slashing at the air, Evan barely avoiding adding another scar to his already overburdened torso as he snatched the offending arm. He held the skinny limb tightly. There was nothing but senseless anger in Philip’s eyes, their light pale, empty. His brow was hardened with rage, but Evan stared at him without letting his gaze move away.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I know what you’re planning to do,” Evan whispered, trying to make himself seem like less the strange villain he looked, and felt. It was Dwight’s gentle gaze that kept him present, kept him from sinking into the mire of icy self-loathing and throbbing<em> wrath</em> that currently held Ojomo under. “But it won’t fix things. Not really. You need to take this to the police. You have a chance to do this right.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan swallowed, letting his eyes briefly close. He saw Dwight behind the counter of the convenience store, looking at the ruinous mass of him with admiration; he saw Dwight in his parlor, looking right through him, past the scars, the mottled skin, the derisive sneer, and into his eyes. He opened them again, and stared at Ojomo with total, selfless sympathy. “Don’t do something you’ll regret.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He remembered the file in the drawer containing the names of corrupt officers and of those who could be trusted. He explained it to Ojomo, whose face slowly softened, the light returning to his eyes between one blink and the next. His body loosened, and he even let Evan take the knife from his curled fingers, lowering his hands to his sides.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Once again, Evan and Dwight let another would-be villain in his own story walk away, even as Evan’s chest gave a twinge of worry at what might happen after. He didn’t have the hope that Dwight seemed to carry, and couldn’t help but wonder about the future for the people whose paths he’d been made, by higher power, to cross. Philip. Sally. Those poor Canadian teens. Would they be okay? Would they move on past what haunted them, or let it consume them the way it did Evan?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan stood in the scrapyard, surrounded on all sides by misty grass and piled cars. Dwight joined him shortly, and though it was a little damaged, like a crumpled bit of paper, his customer-service smile was back on his lips and reached all the way up to his dark brown eyes. Evan noticed them—they were dark brown.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Good work,” Dwight said, voice a little shaky. He cleared his throat. “You set him on a good path.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>They returned home in a snap, and Evan realized he was still holding Ojomo’s knife. He folded it and placed it on the mantle in the parlor, next to his mask, as a symbol, looking at it a moment while his head adjusted to the vertigo of their fast travel. Dwight leaned against a window ledge, the midnight light streaming around him like it had on that first night, when he’d appeared in Evan’s attic, an apparition, looking like a holy tax broker. He was taking notes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan looked at him for a long time. How was it so easy to trust him? Was he bewitching Evan with some angelic magic? Or was Evan just so utterly lonely?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“It might be because I haven’t seen a decent-looking man who didn’t have a <em>tattoo</em> on his face in nearly two decades,” Evan started, “but I can’t help look at you.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dwight looked up, eyes wide with surprise. Then his face softened into a grin. “Flattery won’t win you more points,” he insisted, waving the clipboard, “I already sent the notes.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Did I pass?” Evan asked.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dwight shook his head. “It’s not up for me to decide.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan approached. He leaned over Dwight, boxing him against the windowsill. His fingers itched, <em>begged </em>to grab slender hips, snatch the small body to him, but it was no use—he knew they’d slip right in like through fog. Dwight stared up at him, lashes flickering over dark browns.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Good night, Evan,” Dwight said softly, and before Evan could utter so much as <em>wait</em>, he disappeared.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>***</p>
<p> </p>
<p>For days after Dwight had made himself scarce, Evan lived his remaining days in solitude. There were matters of inheritance to attend: his place on the board was requested, and to unseal his remaining assets would require an in-person visit to the bank. He put it off instead, with persistence, avoiding social contact as much as he could. The manor had what he needed, for now: sturdy walls, food from the thriving, overgrown gardens outside, hot water…it was almost as though he’d exchanged his prison for another one. To make matters more uncomfortable, he didn’t know how long he had left. He ought to get his affairs in order before it was too late. He was meant to die that day in the attic, only dragged back for a second chance… It could end any moment, so what was the point? And what was the point if no one… if <em>someone</em>…wasn’t going to be there?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Six days followed in wretched succession and just as Evan was about to scold heavenly bureaucracy Dwight appeared to him again. He was dressed this time in a charming, well-fitting white shirt, matching slacks and shiny shoes, and the air about him glowed a delightful golden. He pushed up his glasses—slim, gilded frames—and smiled over at Evan as he alighted in the foyer.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I got my promotion!” Dwight said with a joyous laugh. He turned to look over his shoulder and watch two long, translucent wings unfurl from his back, flowing out and out until they touched the floor and ceiling as he spread them. He was grinning like a fool when he looked back at Evan for his reaction. Evan crossed his arms and gave a short nod of the head.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dwight’s outside now looked the purity of his nature—not perfect, not neat and tidy, but bright, clear, simple. Evan stared, openly, not missing the way Dwight flushed all the way to his ears.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Oh!” Dwight said animatedly, “and you passed! Upstairs is all yours—so long as you don’t screw it up from now until it’s your time.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan felt himself breathe a sigh of relief. For the longest while, he hadn’t cared whether he lived or died, ended up above or down below. Things had changed—but what did Dwight mean by his “time”?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m not going up…now?” He looked curiously at Dwight. “Aren’t I supposed to be dead?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dwight shook his head. “No, no. The heart attack wasn’t the end for you. You’ve still got a few years, at least.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan breathed again, but this time it caught in his throat. The idea of moving on felt…comforting as much as awkward, as now he was faced with the idea of having to live a decent life of his own. How the hell was he supposed to do that? He was not a miner, businessman, financier, nor anything for which he was molded for the entirety of his youth. So what was left? Ex-con? Farmer? … <em>Artist?</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dwight put his wings away, standing with toes turned in, fingers clasped behind his back. He looked so excited he could burst—Evan supposed being suffused with heavenly energy did that. He was even rocking a little on his heels. Charming in any form, Evan decided.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Wait, a few years, at least?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“So, then, why did the trials have to be done so quickly?” Evan asked, and Dwight looked a little surprised, face falling for a short moment before recovering.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I don’t—” Dwight stammered, and Evan approached him. He walked until Dwight was walking backwards, until his rear met the buffet in the foyer, and he reached a hand behind him to steady himself. Evan reached out, and this time, his hands met not air, but flesh. His fingers grasped Dwight’s warm waist, giving a gentle squeeze as Dwight gasped. The angel melted quickly into the touch, reaching up to squeeze Evan’s biceps in turn, then sliding his hands up to link them behind Evan’s neck.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What was that three-day deadline all about, if I’ve got a few more years in me?” Evan asked.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I don’t know; it’s just what they gave me,” Dwight shrugged, looking up through his lashes.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan shook his head. Why the hurry to get it done in a few days, if he was going to have years left on earth to make up his bad deeds with good? “It’s almost like you wanted to spend time with me.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Dwight gave a lopsided grin. “I <em>really </em>wanted that promotion.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan huffed. “Isn’t it bad to lie?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I’m not the one on trial<em>mmph</em>—” Evan cut his rejoinder short with his lips. Maybe it was the fault of being parched for so many years, or maybe the fact that he was a literal angel, but Dwight tasted so good, Evan gave himself fully into the kiss. They melted together, Dwight’s nose pushing into his cheek, his tongue gliding across Evan’s upper lip.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“<em>Mm</em>okay,” Dwight mumbled as he pulled away, sliding a hand along Evan’s jaw and to his cheek, gingerly cupping the scarred flesh as if it deserved the kindest handling, “usually you don’t do them all in three days. But the deadline for promotion was coming up and I wanted to impress. And I mean, what’m I gonna be, an <em>appraiser</em> my whole afterlife? And yeah, they’d probably move your file to the next guy after my performance review. S’policy. So technically—<em>mm,</em>” he moaned as Evan imposed another kiss in the middle of his speech, “technically, there <em>was</em> no deadline. Per se.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan scooped him up with a growl, Dwight letting out a soft sound of surprise as his feet left the ground. Evan drew him into another kiss, if not only to stop his ramblings. Dwight’s hand trailed down his back and arm, making patterns in his skin, touching him like he was worth holding softly, squeezing here and caressing there. For his part, Evan held him exceedingly gently, trying to amend years of roughness and violence with tenderness.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>But he wanted more. He lifted Dwight onto the buffet, stepping between his knees, sliding close enough to suggest at something deeper, and Dwight sighed into his ear. He wanted to stay this way, especially if this was the end for the two of them. If he had another few years left at this, was he expected to live it out alone?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What happens to you now?” Evan asked, patting Dwight’s leg, the both of which were drawn around Evan’s waist in what he hoped to be a clear symbol of intent. Dwight looked flushed from the intimacy, but his smile remained.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Well, I’m a<em> liaison</em>, now,” Dwight whispered, “comes with much better compensation, believe me. And,” he took Evan’s hands in his own, drawing them into his lap to pet and swirl his thumbs across the backs, “I can visit whenever I want.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evan breathed in relief, embarrassed of how soft he was getting. Maybe “artist” wasn’t off the table after all, because now his mind was only filled with the idea of making endless gesture drawings of the creature in his arms.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>